Sinbad of the Shores
by RogueWaveWriting
Summary: Continuation of my "AiJunko Saga." While out of the manoir de mort for a beachside performance Ai wakes up from a dream to new feelings about Junko. But these aren't feelings she hasn't had before. After mourning the past and bemoaning the future Ai finally seeks safety in Junko and they get heart-to-heart.


here with your regular dose of gay. enjoy!

* * *

_"Aphrodite had the beauty; Zeus had the thunderbolts."_  
_-_Esther M. Freisner

* * *

**SINBAD OF THE SHORES**

Mizuno Ai sat on a beach towel gazing out toward the sea. It was calm today and the waves rolled slowly, broken only by two girls playing in the water close to the shore. One of them was her friend and groupmate Sakura. The other was another groupmate and her girlfriend Konno Junko.

A voice next to her piped up: "You know that scene –" Ai jumped and turned to see Saki sitting next to her "– in cartoons where two guys are stranded on a deserted island and they're starving and one looks at the other and he turns into a turkey feast with waves of deliciousness coming off him?"

"Yeah. Everyone knows that one. What about it?"

Saki grinned. "That's kinda how yer lookin' at Junko right now."

Ai looked away. "How do you know I'm looking at her?"

"'Cause if you were lookin' at Sakura like that we'd have a problem." Ai heard a popping sound and when she turned back she saw Saki cracking her knuckles. "Do we have a problem?"

"No."

"Good." She smiled and sat back.

Ai hugged her knees and hid the lower half of her face in them. Her eyes were back out toward the ocean. Toward Junko. _Was I really looking at her with such a perverted face?_ Sure, what happened last night was weird, but she was over it. She was!

The average person cannot help what they dream about, but Ai was not the average person. This wasn't a point of pride, either. She was a frequent lucid dreamer. And when she dreamed last night of showering she was very aware of it. She felt the stream caress her face, the water pelt her body like hot bullets, and she thought, _Oh, when was the last time I had a nice hot shower? The ones in winter were always the best. _And then: _Is Junko in here?_

"Mizuno-san."

Ai's gaze swung from the showerhead and there she was. And in that weird way dreams can be sometimes she could see everything and nothing at the same time. Lucidity faded and Ai was then fully in the lap of whatever god is appointed the duty of dispensing dreams on the sleepers.

Until then Ai had never dreamed of sex.

Out in the water Junko and Sakura continued to swim and splash and play. Ai supposed most people would find Sakura sexier, but she liked Junko more. Her body was more delicate and gentle, her skin pale and soft, her… well, chest…

_Stop it! Don't get those thoughts again!_

Her tummy…

_This isn't you anymore! Enough!_

Ai was so consumed with her own thoughts that she didn't notice Junko duck underwater. She didn't come back to reality until moments later when Saki called out, "Had fun out there?"

"Yeah!" Sakura called back. She and Junko were walking towards them. "The water's great. Why don't you join us?"

"Maybe later. I just ate."

"Ai, look what I found!" Junko held her hand out.

"Woah!" It actually managed to knock away all thoughts of sex and perversion. "A conch shell! I've never seen one!"

"Really? Haven't you ever been to the beach?"

"I have, and I used to go shell-hunting, but I never found a conch shell! Wow!" Totally impressed, she took it and turned it over in her hands. It was yellow and spiky and everything. She couldn't believe she was holding this. _Can't help being a Pisces, I guess._

Similarly affected, Saki said, "Put it to your ear and see if you can hear the ocean!"

Ai did. Its currents whispered. Noticing Saki's demeanor, she said, "Do you want to listen too?"

"Yeah!" Saki took it and held it up. "Oh, I can hear it!" She smirked at Sakura. "The ocean says you're hot, babe."

Sakura kicked sand at her.

Ai frowned. It was just like Saki to come right out and say stuff like that. Ai never could. If she did Junko might get upset or disgusted. Or worse, she might laugh.

Ai held the shell back out to Junko.

Smiling, Junko shook her head. "It's yours."

"Really? That's okay?"

"Mm-hmm. I was going to give it to you anyway. I saw it and thought of you."

Ai's stomach fluttered and her cheeks prickled. She looked down, finding refuge in the shell, safe from Junko's open smile and wet body. "Th-thanks." She found herself wanting to kiss her. Between her affection at this gift and her tumultuous feelings she felt ready to kiss Junko a lot. It would have to wait until they weren't in public.

_If only it didn't. I feel ready to have her right now._

_ Oh, would you stop it!_

Junko was reapplying her sunscreen, as were Sakura and Saki. This was Kotaro's plan for waterproofing: reapply every ten minutes. They had a performance here tomorrow, and after what happened in Ureshino he wasn't taking any chances.

"Ai, can you get my back?"

_Want me to wash your back?_ Junko had asked that in the dream and Ai had let her until one thing led to another and they –

"Sure." Ai took the spray can. Stupid dream. She hated it.

After the sunscreen was reapplied Junko hoisted a pail and asked Ai if she wanted to collect beach rocks. Ai said yes. They started off down the beach. It was mostly empty as by now kids had gone back to school. It was August and dog-hot. Ai was certain that if they weren't wearing waterproof SPF 130 sunscreen they'd both sweat their makeup off.

"I love beach rocks," Junko said. "They're pretty colors and they feel so nice. I wonder how they got that way?"

"Abrasion and resistance," said Ai. "Rocks collide with each other and sand smooths them further. As for the color, it depends on the minerals in the water, but most stones are made of quartzite, granite, slate, pumice, and marble."

"Wow. You know a lot about rocks."

"Well, my dad was a geology professor." She itched an eyebrow and looked down. "And I did some beach rock collecting of my own."

"You like the beach too?"

"Yeah, I love it." She wasn't loving the heat, though. It was clouding her thoughts a little. Or maybe it was that dream. She was trying not to look at Junko in her black swimsuit too much. She wanted to. Seagulls were squeaking overhead, and the deliciously salty air breathed with the waves' movement. Ai loved the beach and she loved Junko. Yet, here she was unable to enjoy them to their fullest. It sucked.

"It's weird we've been – you know – for this long but we haven't talked about our families." Junko giggled. "We have a lot in common. We both love the beach and we both have parents who are teachers."

"Your dad was a teacher too?"

"Mm-mm. My mother was. She was a music teacher."

"She must have pushed you hard."

Junko drew her lips in and nodded. "Some pushing was involved as far as my singing went, yes. But she did it out of love for me and I love her for that."

"No wonder you're such a good singer."

"Aw," Junko muttered uncomfortably.

Silence passed. Occasionally the two of them would stop to scoop up rocks and drop them in the pail. A track of sweat got into Ai's eye and she tried to rub it out.

"That heavy?" she asked when she saw the pail was three-quarters full.

"A little. But I'm fine."

"Let me take it." When Junko hesitated Ai held out her hand and said, "Go on, I'll be okay."

Junko forked it over. "Thank you." She briefly put her hand on Ai's back and that alone was enough to bring those thoughts back with a vengeance. She couldn't help it. She had never felt Junko's hand touch her skin-to-skin there. _Let me wash your back. Oh my goodness. Oh, Ai!_

"Oh, Ai, look at this one! It's beautiful!" Junko bent to grab the rock. She didn't stoop, she bent, giving Ai a good view of her derriere. In her heat-and-lovestruck state Ai couldn't look away. Her eyeballs grew heavy as red and black dots dazzled in her vision. She was floating. She was sinking. She was both.

"It has all the same colors as us. We can put it in the practice room – Ai? Ai!"

Ai had fallen face first in the sand. To her right was the pail, its rocky contents scattered. To her left was the conch shell.

* * *

Ai surfaced quickly after, but by then Junko had run off. All good, you know, it wasn't like she could salvage this embarrassing situation in the best state of mind. And right now her state of mind was horrible at best. She had just enough mental awareness to beat herself up. _I fainted. I actually fainted over Junko. I'm like some ditzy shoujo manga protagonist._

Consciousness ebbed and flowed. She felt her body being lifted up and carried. Voices clanged in her throbbing head.

"Dehydration, you think?" Sakura.

"Prolly. Hot as balls out." Saki.

"B-buh…" Junko's voice. "She was out in the sun for a shorter time than I was."

Saki: "Weak."

Cool air kissed her face and she came back up again. They were carrying her through the inn lobby. People gawked. The woman at the front desk asked, "Is she okay?"

"She's fine," Saki said. "She just needs water."

"Sorry," Ai slurred at the woman. She knew nothing sold your comfy inn like a semi-conscious person being dragged through the lobby. _Somebody call a bellhop, we got baggage here. _See, that would be funny if they were staying at a Western-style inn. She was really failing at everything today.

A doorway passed overhead and the cotton of her futon rose up to her back. Sakura and Saki appeared above her.

"Feeling okay?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry about all this."

"Face it, Ai," Saki said. "You're just doomed to never have a good time."

"You have boogers in your nose." It was true. She could see them.

Saki showed her her middle finger.

Sakura disappeared and returned with a bowl of water and a towel. Ai heard splashing, dripping, and then felt a cold wet towel laid on her forehead.

"Here," Sakura said. "Drink this."

_Yes. Water._

Eyes closed, Ai took the bottle. She opened them.

_Oh, what the hell._

"A baby bottle?"

"It's so you can drink without sitting up!" Sakura said, beaming proudly. "My brother used to do it when he got sick in college."

_Thanks. I'm humiliated _and_ I have a gross mental image._ Still, it was with good intentions and Sakura did help carry her, so that snide remark would have to go in the unsaid file. "That _is_ pretty clever. Thank you."

"Oh, no, happy to help. You want us to stay and keep you company?"

"You don't have to. I might nap as long as I'm here."

"That's the spirit!" Saki said. "C'mon, Sakura, let's get some yakitori. I'm starving."

"Didn't you just eat?"

"I get bad mileage. My gut's like a Canyonero bike."

Their voices faded out of the room and down the hall.

Holding the towel to her head, Ai sat up a little and looked around. The room was empty. She lowered herself back down and grabbed the bottle. Stared at it. Glared, more like. Deciding thirst was priority, she sighed and did something she likely hadn't done since 1993. And, drinking, she thought maybe Sakura and her weird brother were onto something. This was nice and convenient, even if she felt stupid as hell.

The AC kicked on and that plus the water gave Ai a little energy. She lurched up to the closet, grabbed a robe, and donned it.

After laying back down she got to thinking about the myth of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of sexual attraction. She wasn't looking for Mr. Right; she wanted Mr. Right Now. Aphrodite's legend began with her emerging from the ocean to shore and ever since everyone's private parts never again knew peace. Wasn't the ocean a perfect symbol for sex? Wave upon wave crashing against the stone piers of some girl's pride and stubbornness.

_If Junko's Aphrodite then I'm goddamn Sappho._

The door slid open and light, quick footsteps stuttered inward. Ai smiled. She knew those footsteps. They moved toward her, cloth rustled, and the bowl of water blooped, sloshed, and dripped. The cold wet towel landed slowly and gently on her forehead.

"Hi," she said.

Junko squeaked. "You're awake!"

"Yep." Smiling, Ai opened her eyes.

Junko cleared her throat and smoothed the end of her robe. "How are you feeling?"

"Much better."

"Good."

"Junko?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

"Oh, Ai." Junko brought a curled hand to her mouth and giggled. "I love you, too." She leaned downward and kissed her cheek. Ai liked when she kissed her cheeks. It felt so sweet.

"I'm sorry," Junko said.

Ai was so wrapped up in the sweetness that the apology sounded outrageous. "For what?"

"For not paying attention. If I had been I would have noticed that you were tired and hot and thirsty, and I would have gotten you out of the sun before you fell over. I get too wrapped up in things and…"

"You're not at fault, Junko. I could have said at any time that I wasn't feeling well, but I didn't."

"I really don't think you're to blame, though. Maybe neither of us are."

"Yeah, maybe."

Junko then said, "Weather does not seem to like you very much."

Ai snorted. "No kidding. My dad had me focused on the ground when it was the sky I should have watched out for."

"See, I had the opposite problem…"

Ai gaped at her, then burst out laughing. That was the first time she had ever heard Junko crack a joke about her death. Junko joined her laughing. Ai loved the sound of their laughter. She loved Junko's laugh, and she loved being able to be a part of it.

Their laughter died down. They looked at each other for a moment and then got laughing again.

"I guess I missed on helluva joke," Saki said as she entered.

"Not really," Ai said, wiping her eyes. "Just Junko doing what she does best – keeping me grounded."

Junko snorted and turned aside, shaking.

Saki stared at them, then said, "Uh, okay. Well, anyway, we're gonna tell ghost stories in the other room."

Ai looked at the clock. It was seven already. The sun was still out.

"You guys wanna join us?"

The two of them looked at each other. Then they looked back at Saki and shook their heads.

"Hmph. Couple of zombies afraid of ghosts. Suit yourselves, scaredy-cats." And she left, closing the door behind her.

They were quiet a moment.

"Um," Junko said. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Is there a reason you're drinking from a baby bottle?"

Ai could feel her heart snap as it kicked up into her throat. "It – it's so I can drink laying down! It's very convenient!"

Junko nodded, looking more than a little weirded out.

"It was Sakura's idea!"

"Oh. Is this what everyone's doing nowadays?"

"No, boomer, it's not. We might be the 'entitled' generation –" using the e-word made her mouth taste like throw up "– but we can sit up to drink if we're feeling well." Ai sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose. "Now can I ask you something?"

"Yes."

"Do I…" She took her hand away and looked at her. "Do I seem childish to you?"

Junko shook her head. "No. Why would I think that? If this is about the bottle I thought it was strange more than childish."

"Well, I mean, you're about the same age as my parents."

"Your parents are nineteen years old?"

"No. But you would be around their age if you lived. I'm not saying I look at you as like a mother, but sometimes I wonder if I should."

"You said if I lived. But I didn't. I died and now I'm nineteen forever. I don't look at you like a child because I've never had children, and I didn't know anybody with them. I guess I can see how you'd see your parents in me, especially if they used a lot of lingo and liked a lot of things from the 70s and 80s. But if you look at the way things are instead of what they could be, the difference between us age-wise is three years. No mother and daughter have that age difference."

"Yeah." And as the words sank in, smoothing the worries off her brain and airing it out, Ai nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

Junko smiled and laid her hand on Ai's. "Don't worry, I've thought about the same thing. I thought, 'If me and Ai were alive, why, I'd look like a real freak. Some old hag who's past her prime and looking to reclaim lost youth by taking advantage of some girl.'"

"There's no lost youth, though." Ai sat up and her towel fell off. There was a gray smear where it had soaked off her makeup. "You're still young."

"Exactly."

"Also…" Ai leaned forward, her eyes locked with Junko's, and tilted her head. She smiled. "I'm not so easily taken advantage of."

Junko hesitated, then leaned in and kissed her. Ai leaned into the kiss, her hand coming up to Junko's cheek. It was hot. Hers were as well. Her heart was drumming away. If it wasn't anchored to her chest she supposed it would just fly right out. Every soft stroke of Junko's lips sent intense sensations all the way down to her toes. When they broke off the kiss Ai let out a deep breath.

"I think you're feeling extra-affectionate tonight," said Junko. Ai noticed that she was also breathing quicker.

"You think right. I am." Months ago such a conversation would have embarrassed Ai, but they were closer now so it wasn't so bad (but still a little nerve-wracking). "I love you. I'm glad I met you like this." Unable to help wanting more, she kissed Junko again.

"Feeling's mutual," Junko said before giving Ai a kiss of her own. When she pulled back her eyes drifted downward, popped wider, then darted toward the ceiling.

_Do you think about it, Junko?_ Ai couldn't ask her that, but she couldn't help feeling like that downward gaze confirmed it, confirmed that Ai wasn't the only one between them starving on a deserted island. _Do you ever feel anything like what I've been feeling?_

"We're alone," Ai said.

"We are. Um, Ai, do you… I mean, do you w… want to…"

She trailed off, but Ai thought she knew what she meant.

"Have heppei?"

The second that left her mouth she regretted it.

Junko recoiled. "He… h-hep… Hep…"

In Japanese the common term for copulation is _sekusu_, unless you come from a certain part of Hokkaido.

"I – I had no idea you were from Akita."

"I'm not! I'm from Ueno! My dad's from Akita, the way he talks rubbed off on me."

"Your father talked to you about… that?"

"Yeah, yeah, he always told me and my sister to stay away from boys because they were lying dogs who only wanted hep – sex." If it wasn't bad enough that the man had to give such embarrassing lectures to his daughters he had to use that scummy word, that word that made any decent civilized person in Japan feel slimy inside. And now the real nail in his coffin was Ai was here saying it in front of her beautiful decent civilized girlfriend.

"Oh. Well, he was probably saying that to protect you."

Ai grunted.

"Anyway," Junko said, "that word aside, that was what I was going to ask about."

"If I want to have sex?"

Junko nodded, blushing.

Feeling like a cyborg in a certain 2004 film, Ai asked, "Do you?"

Junko fidgeted with the sash on her robe. "I – I've… I've never… done it before…"

"There's nothing wrong with that."

"I guess." Junko scratched the back of her head. "I don't know why I think that matters when neither of us have."

"I have, actually."

"You _what?_"

Ai flinched. She hadn't heard Junko yell that loud in a while.

"When? With who? How?"

"Okay. I'm not going to tell you about this if you keep looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like – that." Ai gestured toward Junko's face.

"This is my listening face. I'm listening."

"That is not your listening face."

"It is."

"No, girl. This is." Ai motioned around her own face, which was set in a neutral expression. "This is how you're looking at me." She popped her eyes and mouth open.

"Well, sorry." She didn't make the listening face, but it looked a bit less like she would call her… whatever they called girls who did it back then. Hussy. Jezebel. Jesus, you may as well go all in and call her a slut as long as you're being judgmental. "I just never saw you as the type. Not like you're childish, mind you, but straightlaced."

"Gaylaced, more like." Before they went out Ai would have rolled her eyes so hard at such a joke.

Junko smiled at the joke, then asked, "Where'd you find the time?"

"There wasn't much of it, admittedly. But we lived together, and it wasn't like we were in a relationship."

"Who was this girl?"

"Nina."

"_Your groupmate?_" The You-Hussy-You-Jezebel face returned.

Ai cocked an eyebrow. "And you are…?"

"Right. Sorry. If you weren't in a relationship though how did it happen?"

"It just… happened."

Junko shook her head. "That sort of thing doesn't just happen."

Ai sighed. She was getting that feeling of being pulled again. But not under by passion. It was back by years. The undertow of time claimed her as she told Junko how it happened.

* * *

The year was 2008. It was the end of June and the Tokyo Pride Parade was coming up. Iron Frill's producer decided to tie this in with the announcement of his wife's pregnancy in a way he hoped would show the girls his paternal caring.

"I'm hoping it'll be a boy," he said. "We already have a boy, and if you have a girl after the boy there's a chance she'll turn out funny."

The other girls nodded, but Ai wasn't buying it. "Funny how? Funny as in no arms and legs?"

He glared at her. "That is not funny, that is tragic, and you should feel bad for implying that it's funny. I mean funny as in…" He sighed, turned his eyes upward, then shook his head. "You know what I mean, right?"

Ai shook her head.

He looked at her pityingly and said, "I mean funny as in she'll turn up to the pussy-eating parade that's going on this weekend."

"Gross!" one of the girls exclaimed.

The producer behind Iron Frill knew the industry in and out, but he wasn't terribly articulate. Usually lack of articulation comes with a quiet personality, but this fellow had the opposite problem.

"A faggot could dance better than you! You're just a bunch of club-footed dykes!"

The other girls shrugged their shoulders or giggled. He could have called them communists or vampires; they were insults, yes, but unless these girls drank blood or espoused anti-capitalist ideologies they could never have understood the sting of recognition or the fear of discovery.

Well, most of the members of Iron Frill were like that. Taimajima Nina was not. A tall girl from Shibuya, Nina tended to look away when talking to girls, shifting her eyes upward as though she were studying the weather conditions. Like Ai, she didn't seem interested in anything this man had to say. While working together on song lyrics one morning the producer tore the unfinished work out from under the two of them and exclaimed, "What are you, a pair of dykes who can't write prose?"

Ai had laughed out loud at his stupidity. If there was anyone who could write prose, it was a dyke. It was the other girls he had to watch out for. She saw Nina laughing too and soon they took to mocking this producer, referring to each other first as dykes, then as "stinking dykes." They were "lazy dykes" and "sunburned dykes" before they became "dykey dykes." They couldn't protest the word as that meant acknowledging the truth in it. The most they could do was embrace it as a joke. Embodying the term in all its cliched glory, they called each other "Dyke-oneesama" and straightened pretend neckties, played at lit club members who cried in the most ridiculous over-the-top fashion over Iseiaisha-senpai, an imaginary girl they made up purely for them to discover again and again that she was (cue sob) straight. _Dyke_, as a word, was always delivered in a harsh and unforgiving tone befitting those weak and stupid enough to act upon their impulses. They used it as a joke, an accusation… and then as a dare.

Late at night Ai would hear the futon next to hers swish, Nina's breath quickening. Either she was masturbating or having a terrible nightmare. _Is it me she's thinking about?_ Ai would follow her lead and wake up the next morning to find their futons had scooted a good nine inches away from where they originally lay. Their love had the power to move futons.

Having no willpower, they relied on circumstances to keep them apart. _This cannot happen_ was accompanied by the shift of sheets whispering, _Oh, but maybe just this once_. There came an afternoon when, running late to practice, they found themselves alone in the apartment. What started off as name-calling escalated into a series of mock-angry slaps. They wrestled each other onto the futons, both of them longing to be pinned. "You kids think you invented sex," her father was fond of saying. But hadn't they? With no instruction manual or federally-enforced training period, didn't everyone come away feeling like they had discovered something unspeakably modern?

What produced in others a sense of exhilaration left Ai with a mortifying sense of guilt. She remembered sitting cross-legged by the futons, staring at her clasped hands, her back to Nina, who was napping. This was more than a stupid mistake. This was a huge one. This wasn't the sort of mistake you could come back from. The joke was stripped away and all Ai had that afternoon was reality. What dyke could bring dreams and inspiration to her fans? What dyke did every little girl want to grow up to be?

Earlier that year word got out that a seiyuu idol (a Legendary Heisei Idol in her own right) had had a few casual flings with the guys in her band. She had been branded a whore and canceled. If that was the punishment for a girl and a guy Ai imagined the punishment for two girls involved a wooden frame, samurai swords, and lingchi.

Whatever fear and humiliation Ai lived with was apparently lost on Nina, who afterward took to her side at all times. And since at the time Ai believed in opposites attracting, she let her coax her into a few more mistakes. With each mistake Nina grew closer and Ai grew warier.

"Christ, Nina," Ai whispered as they ducked into an equipment shed. "We have to be backstage in fifteen minutes."

"That's enough time." Nina pulled her shirt off. Her breasts jiggled fetchingly in her bra, but this time Ai finally found it in herself to not be fetched. It was raining out. They both stank of rain. If you could still sleep with someone who smelled like that your libido was either very good or very not good.

Nina came in for a kiss. Ai jerked her head aside.

"Not in the mood?"

"Yeah, no, I'm not," Ai said.

"Nothing you can do about that then." Nina stepped back. "I guess we shouldn't go on stage tired after an orgasm anyway."

_Do you really like sleeping with me?_ She must have, considering how many times in the past month she had approached Ai to do so. But after each mistake she would go right to sleep. Oh, she would wake up and then wax romantic and philosophical about their relationship. But first came the sleep.

"Nina, I don't think we should do this anymore."

She froze in the middle of bending to grab her shirt.

"It's just a bad idea. Everytime we do this we get closer and closer to getting caught. Someone could be outside this very shed."

"They're probably not."

"Probably's not good enough."

"Oh, Ai." Smiling, still shirtless, Nina stepped toward her and put a hand on her face. "I know how you feel about all this, but I think you might be worrying too much."

"If you knew how I felt you wouldn't think that!" Ai backhanded her hand away. "If you knew how I felt you'd know that what happened should have only happened once! _I do not want to do this anymore!_"

"Well, why not? They hate us! We need each other!"

_Why_, Ai thought, _couldn't I have waited for her to put her shirt on before I went in?_ She looked so sad standing there in her Hawaiian print bra.

Nina tried to grin, but in her state it looked more like a grimace. "Think of how mad they'd be if they found out about us."

"They're plenty mad enough about us existing. Think of how mad I'll be when we're out of a job. You think they'll still be mad when they fire and blacklist us?"

"Well, we'll still have each other. Isn't living well supposed to be the best revenge?"

"Yeah, if you call that 'living well,'" Ai said and Nina flinched. _Great going, Ai. Why don't you just punch her in the face? Would be faster and easier._

"So it's about the money."

"No, Nina, it's about me liking myself more than you."

"That's bull. I thought you loved me."

"I don't."

Nina seemed to get smaller still. Ai felt the same way. She had ripped off the proverbial Band Aid, yet she didn't feel any better. Maybe, she thought, there were hings she shouldn't have said that afternoon, things she would have to apologize for. And she would. In due time she would.

* * *

"What did Nina-san say when you apologized to her?"

"I didn't," Ai said. "At that day's performance I was hit by lightning."

"Oh my God." Junko's shoulders dropped; her whole body seemed to sink as if screws holding it together had popped off.

"So yeah. That's how it happened."

Junko sighed and looked down. Silence spun out. It wasn't bad silence. In it they grew closer. Ai thought of Nina, but she thought more of Junko, how she had snapped at her over a simple "I love you." Junko had said she thought Ai was too straightlaced to deal with crap for too long. Ai presently fought back laughter at that. The opposite was true: she held her tongue until she exploded. At least this time all she did was faint. There was no yelling but instead the two of them talking to each other like normal people._ I might be getting better. But maybe next time something's on my mind I should come right out and say something._

"Sex makes everything complicated," Junko said. "Someone told me that once."

"They were right."

"They also told me – oh, how do I say this." Junko got a bit red. "That once you start having it you can't stop having more."

"They're right about that, too. That's partly why I stayed with Nina for as long as I did."

Junko looked at her. "I don't want that to happen to me. I don't want what happened to you and Nina to happen to us."

"I don't think it will. You're different than her."

"But what if sex changes me and suddenly I'm asking you to do it fifteen minutes before we're due backstage?"

The idea of Junko turning into a sex maniac was incredibly tickling, and Ai almost laughed. "If that happens I'll say no, but we'll still be together. Because I like you more than Nina. I love you."

Junko smiled. "I love you." Then she said, "But what if I'm bad at it?"

"Didn't you learn anything from that porn you saw?"

"Ai!"

She laughed. "Sorry, sorry. You won't be. It'll be good as long as it's with you. That's what I think."

Junko's eyes were on hers. They were such beautiful eyes. Ai loved them. They pulled her in, blue and irresistible, until the were kissing. When their lips met Ai felt it all over her body. Chasing emotional with physical, she pulled Junko close. The kiss deepened, becoming so good and so hot that Ai didn't want to come up for air. And while kissing her, she thought,_ Wherever I am she meets me there. She's so good to me._ She had always worried she and Junko were a mess together, but talking about Nina made her realize what true messiness looked like. Junko wouldn't morph into a sex maniac because that wasn't who she was but also _because that wasn't who she was._ She didn't make people give up things about themselves in order to gain her love.

_God, what do you do with someone like Junko?_ Ai was at a loss. _She gives me so much and I guess all I can give her tonight is a better first time than I had._ She wanted to make her feel so good in herself that everyone worldwide, even the people who hated her, would quake in pleasure.

Ai started to nudge Junko onto her back.

A collection of voices screaming exploded like a cold snap in sultry summer instead of winter and they flew apart.

But the room was still empty.

Then Ai remembered. "Ghost stories."

"Yeah." Junko's chest was heaving. Her robe had rucked up, exposing her thighs, and she yanked it down. "Thin walls."

They sounded like cavewomen. _Oonga oonga. Like heppei. Ghost stories. Thin walls._

"I don't want them to hear us."

They looked at each other and giggled.

"I guess we're waiting until some other time," Junko said.

"But Junko," Ai said, "I thought this was your sex addict awakening. Don't you want to insist on it?"

"Oh, you." She grabbed the bottle and tossed it at Ai's feet.

* * *

_"I am so frustrated by your ability to leave me spellbound."_  
-Pink Lady, _Sinbad of the Shores_

* * *

this came out a tad fluffier than i intended, but overall i like it and hopefully you do too. please pay this starving writer in comments and reviews, and until next time~ peace


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